This week was very exciting! Many kids finished their environmental projects. Dylan, Nadia, Olivia, and Sean’s presentations were very interesting. They all had great power points with wonderful pictures. We have started to watch them a second time around so we can talk about what we liked and if there were any small mistakes. Dylan did his presentation on acid rain, and we all liked how it really showed that acid rain doesn’t just cause a couple of small things; it causes everyday things from asthma to destroying monuments. He also had a picture of the United States that showed where the acidity levels in rain was the worst and where it was more basic. In Nadia’s presentation about PCB’s (polychlorinated biphenyls) in the Hudson River, she included a power point and a poster. We haven’t had a chance to look a second time at Nadia’s presentation, or Sean’s, but we plan to do that next week. Sean’s presentation about deforestation was, “Awesome,” as the whole class said when I asked. Olivia presented her project about air pollution on Monday. Her presentation was well organized, and we liked all of her pictures. In fact, we spent some time talking about which one was our favorite. Everyone said the fortune tellers with air pollution facts were the best! This week we also had another guest mathematician. Julian, Sean and Ben’s older brother, came and talked about an infinite pattern. We taped two yard sticks to the wall and used a soccer ball or a tennis ball for the experiment. One person from one of the three teams would hold the ball at the top and drop it. Most of the balls bounced from 11 to 15 times before they were still. We recorded the length left the ball would have to drop to get to the ground after the first bounce. The example one Julian did bounced 32 inches in the air on the first bounce. The math sequence we tried had exponents and fractions. In the end, we couldn’t figure out the problem, but we’re still working on it! All the grades have been moving along in math. The sixth years are almost done with the super hard 6A book and will hopefully be on book 6B by next week. This week Debbie has also been starting to take out the torch and the country flags for the Olympics this year. We will have three teams: Japan, Brazil, and Greece. The medals she ordered came in, and we caught a sneak peek at them. We saw warm colored bands like red and orange, perfect for the Rio De Janeiro Olympics. This was a very productive week. Happy Mother’s Day!